Week 10: Race and Ethnicity

There have been a few dark times in America's history, including slavery.  The interment of Japanese Americans during World War 2 is another time.  With no credible intelligence to suggest that the Japanese in America had anything to do with the attacks on Pearl Harbor they were taken away from their lives and placed in camps.  I don't think that something like this could happen again.  I do not think the government could get away with taking a whole group of people and putting them into camps.  However, after 9/11 people from the Middle East were targeted during airport searches.  I think when attacks happen there is an air of panic and people do not know what to do.  I think that the government made a poor choice by taking out their fear on other Japanese Americans but I understand the situation they were in.  People wanted justice and the government did not know what to do.  The government took too much time to apologize to those they imprisoned and they made too little effort to help them replace the lives they had to leave.  Reading the website taught me that there are still lingering effects on the Japanese people that were imprisoned.  Hopefully we never have to deal with something like this again.

Week 9: Gender Inequality

I think that gender identity is more socially constructed than biological.  If biology played a major role than we would expect to find men and women's roles similar everywhere.  However, that is not the case.  In different cultures all over the world we see that some societies have similar roles for men and women and some, like America, have very different roles.  Based on how males and females are perceived in a society, the society socially constructs gender roles.  We see every day how babies are introduced to social roles in America.  Girls wear pink and play with dolls, boys wear blue and play with trucks.  Parents reinforce children who follow what is expected of them and are punished when they do not follow those roles. 

What is harder to explain would be homosexuals.  I believe that homosexuality is biology based and many homosexuals go against social norms for gender.  They have a hard time being who they are and dealing with the problems that society has with them.  I think that gays and lesbians go through a different gender construction.  They cannot follow the majority of society and so I think that they turn to each other to learn roles. 

Week 8: Global Inequality

Like the podcast asked, why should we care about global inequality?  It may be easy to say that global inequality does not matter so much to us in the United States because we are so high on the income scale and most of us enjoy comfortable lifestyles.  However, to someone in a low income country like most of Africa, global inequality would be a big deal.  Low income countries strive to build their economies and may strive to be like the United States or western Europe.  They face a lot of challenges though.  Global inequality is something those countries struggle with every day.  We may not see the impact of the inequality in our lives in obvious ways, but it does affect us.

Many of our jobs here in America are outsourced to other countries because those countries will work for far less wages.  That has an impact on unemployment rates and therefore poverty rates in the United States.  America gets many products from other countries because they may be cheaper.  Because we depend so much on these exports, the prices can change a lot.  These other countries that control the production of things we want can change their prices, which in turn makes us pay more.  Global inequality also affects what we are able to sell.  The low income countries cannot afford our products and we lose business because of that.  If global inequality were to diminish and those low income countries were to see an increase in their economy we could start new business with them.

Not only should we care about global inequality because of business reasons, but also moral reasons.  Global inequality means that low income countries do not have access to health care or education.  They cannot afford the means to live a minimally necessary lifestyle.  Children starve and die of diseases they should not die from.  If these countries had a chance to learn from schooling they could make something of themselves and help their countries to improve.  Children would not have to die and quality of life would improve.  These sorts of problems may not affect us directly here in America but I feel that we as a high income and privileged country should aid those other countries in some way so that we can all benefit from less global inequality.

Week 7: Social Class in the US

I think that social class still very much matters today.  It may not be something that we express very often or are obvious about it these days but class still plays a role in our behavior.  A few decades ago class was very important.  The rich looked down at the poor people and had no problem expressing their disdain for them.  Today it would be seen as more rude to outwardly talk about not liking people of a lower class.  People may see you as stuck up or snobby.  Also, today we have a lot more classes than existed years ago.  People who are not in the upper class can still enjoy a comfortable lifestyle and there are those in the upper class who use their money for good causes to help those less fortunate.

I think that class shapes society, although not as much as before.  We have a lot more opportunities for upward mobility.  However, as shown on the website People Like Us, each person stuggles individually with their class.  Some people have a harder time moving up classes when they began in a lower one.  When people move down classes by choice or not they are looked down upon by the class they once belonged to.  I think the way people treat different classes can be blatant (especially from the upper class to the lower class) but a lot of the interaction that takes place on a daily level is more subtle.  Think about the movie Pretty Woman.  When Julia Roberts goes into that pricey store in her revealing dress she is asked to look elsewhere for clothes.  I have seen the looks that poorer looking people get when they walk into nice stores.  They are followed by the sales associates because they may steal something.  How many of us avoid homeless people when we walk through cities?  We may not say anything outloud, but we cannot help but think about these class differences.

I think that class still matters a lot in today's society.  We may not be as vocal about it and we may have more opportunities for upward movement, but we can't deny that class separates us from other people.